This is the link to my newest book: PARTLY BROKEN POEMS AND SCRIPTURE PRAYERS. I would be thrilled if folks would check it out, at least in order to see the artwork on the cover since I put my heart and soul, (and my grandson Emmett Charles!) into it. Thanks! Ray
Every written and published book, I’m discovering, is not just a product, but a journey of the soul. I guess it has always been a dream of mine to be a writer and illustrator of books. Perhaps my older siblings remember that I created my first book when I was a student of my beloved first grade teacher, Mrs. Albers, who I mentioned in my first book, a 95% historically accurate memoir of my life called ALWAYS PARTLY BROKEN. My book for Mrs Albers consisted of stapled-together sheets of smooth 5” x 8” paper that Mom supplied me with. I used markers and crayons to create a lot of cartoon-like pictures surrounded by thick, black, wobbly print. I don’t know how Mrs. Albers was able to read my childish production to the class, but read it to them she did! It was a voluntary assignment and a proud moment for young Raymond Charles Geers. None of my classmates were writing books that year.
The title of that first creation was THE BIG CRYBABY, and the main character was a girl, probably a first-grader like me, who “cried all the time.” According to the book, she cried at weddings, at birthdays and at any given minute, no matter the circumstances. One day, the girl is said to have cried all night, which led to a flood in her family’s house. “How will we get all this water out of the house?” was the big question. Somebody said, “The sun can help us!” And, sure enough, the sun came shining out from the clouds - with a big sunny grin - and dried up all the tears. The last page of the book had a big “THE END” written across it and a picture of the main character mopping up the residual water. She was no longer crying.
What was the point of this first story? Well, at the tender age of seven, I didn’t worry about having a point. I was just followed my inspiration. I heard somewhere that every poet must be taught her own meaning. I take this to mean that the primary job of the poet is to create rather than to waste her time always trying to explain herself. Exploring and explaining meaning is perhaps another job separate from the creating task altogether. My blog PARTLYBROKEN.COM was originally conceived by me as a place where I could explore glimmerings of meaning within my books in the context of larger life concerns. Since I have contributed so rarely to this blog, you can tell that I’d rather create than explain. But this doesn’t mean I think the search to know and to articulate meaning is unimportant. Perhaps it only indicates that I prefer to give myself to only one task at a time.
All of this is a round-about way of saying this: that my new book has a lot of meaning for me, but I am not prepared to explore or to explain it for folks at this time. In fact, it might be better if I didn’t even try. Then the reader of my words and the observer of my pictures – (because PARTLY BROKEN POEMS AND SCRIPTURE PRAYERS is also a book of pictures) - can come to the final product with a more open and unprejudiced mind. I hope and pray that there will be kind hearts, like Mrs. Albers, who will give my book a chance even though it may seem to spring up, without warning or explanation, out of the clear blue. PARTLY BROKEN POEMS AND SCRIPTURE PRAYERS is being asked to speak for itself. May it speak to the condition of even one person. As Jesus liked to say: “May those who have ears for hearing, listen.”
Here is a link to an author's talk about this and my first book: ALWAYS PARTLY BROKEN:
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